Golf club head with customizable center of gravity

Abstract

A golf club (40) having a club head (42) with a face component (60) and an interchangeable aft-body (61) is disclosed herein. The face component (60) has a striking plate portion (72) and a return portion (74). The aft-body (61), which is attached to the return portion (74) of the face component (60), is selected from a plurality of aft-bodies, each having a different center of gravity location. Each of the aft-bodies (61) is composed of a crown portion (62), a sole portion (64), and a plurality of weights (122) for adjusting location of the center of gravity. An aft-body (61) is selected from the plurality of aft-bodies (61) based on its center of gravity location, so as to provide the club head (40) with a center of gravity location suited to a particular golfer.

Description

CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 925,529, filed on Aug. 24, 2004, which is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 709,213, filed on Apr. 21, 2004, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,619 which is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 249,510, filed on Apr. 15, 2003, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,983, which is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 683,860, filed on Feb. 22, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,582,323, which is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 906,889, filed on Jul. 16, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,491,592, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 431,982, filed Nov. 1, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,354,962.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT[0002]Not ApplicableBACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]1. Field ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a way to make golf club heads with a specific center of gravity location that can be selected for a specific player or player segment. This is done by pre-manufacturing and selecting interchangeable aft-body components that can be bonded to a face component. The center of gravity location can be adjusted in both the heel-toe and sole-crown directions to achieve desired levels of side spin and back spin for the player type. The weight members in the aft-body are preferably positioned to provide a desired center of gravity position. The golf club head has improved performance by adjusting the spin characteristics to match the player type. The invention also allows for mass customization of the center of gravity of a golf club head for high volume manufacturing.

Problems solved by technology

Most of the energy is transferred from the head to the golf ball, however, some energy is lost as a result of the collision.

However, this leads to greater deformations in the golf ball, and thus increases in the energy transfer problem.

Existing large volume driver heads (>300 cc) composed of conventional materials (titanium, steel) and conventional manufacturing methods (casting, forging, MIM, machining, etc.) are limited in the amount of discretionary material available for adjusting the center of gravity location of the golf club head.

This limits the ability to customize the performance characteristics of the head to best suit a particular player or segment of players.

Further, the center of gravity is not readily adjustable since the discretionary mass is in the form of parent metal or a discrete weight chip, both of which are established early in the head manufacturing process.

Therefore, customizing the center of gravity of conventional head designs is generally difficult and ineffective.

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